MIDNIGHT GHOSTS is a mystery novel based on actual events in world aviation history. Raymond Orteig, a NY Hotel owner, offered a $25,000 prize to the first pilot flying nonstop between Paris and New York (in either direction). This prize generated a worldwide rivalry between the countires of competing pilots, and planes. Being the country of origin of the winner could generate enormous profits for that nation's airline companies, airports and airline stockholders. What if a ruthless U.S. manufacturer of airline engines determined that only an American pilot and plane must win that prize. That would mean that the only non-American competitor, the French L'oiseau blanc (White Bird), had to be sabotaged if necessary before taking off from Paris. Whether the plot failed or succeeded, any one who learned of it must be killed. Only one advertising copy writer and his sick elderly grandfather who had been a business partner of the industrialist could stop this man who had become mad with greed and power. If they had the time and skills to do it.